I am writing this very very late at night, and a couple of weeks after this occurred, so my apologies. Keeping a blog updated is hard work, and my hat is off to bloggers out there who post so frequently. Oh I know, I’ll blame the spotty Internet access and whatnot for the delays. Yeah, that’s the ticket. I hope you have all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas, survived the holidays in tact. Now, to my post…Week Wu was not very exciting. I finally made it to the Qi Pu Wholesale Market, which, to put it simply, is bloody bedlam. Imagine two blocks of warehouse buildings packed to the brims with tiny stores that sell clothing and accessories, many to street vendors. In fact, there are street vendors right outside the buildings that sell huge woven bags and handcarts for people who buy in bulk and need to transport their goodies. As to the actual merchandise…clothes and accessories. Surrounded by lots and lots of people. First the clothes. Woolen checks for the granddad set, teeny bopper booty shorts trimmed in sparkly fripperies, meant for both teeny boppers and middle-aged ladies…punk/Gothic looks, over-the-top Harujuko wannabe looks…I’m sure I could have found something to buy…if I were comfortable enough to buy! Dudes, the place was packed. Buyers, be they tourists or street vendors stocking up on inventory, were all milling around, shoving around, and generally making my claustrophobic tendency to screech and claw to the nearest exit for fresh air to surface as rapidly as the wheeling and dealing swirling around the market. I went through the entire building of one of the smaller warehouses relatively unscathed, and after exiting the building, without making a purchase, I ventured to the larger building, and finally succumbed to the shopping gods at a shop selling T-shirts. I picked up a few, and bargained down from the opening price, but still came out feeling like Daffy Duck yelping “Duck Season, Fire!” I passed quite a few shops selling fake designer bags, but they were bad fakes. I think they took designs from 10 years ago (quilted camera bags with brass link chains?) and just stamped a bunch of fake designer logos on them. I can’t believe I made it through Shanghai without buying one fake designer item…anyway, I finally did claw my way out of the building in search of fresh air, and as luck would have it, I exited onto the “food court” alley, where street food vendors had set up shop, and thus was rewarded not with fresh air, but with the aroma of grilling meat, corn, potatoes, and stinky tofu. Hmmmm.
This week, in order to make up for the meat consumption overload, I went for a vegetarian meal. In a vegetarian restaurant. With no meat. Yep. Gaspety gasp, let me give you time to revive from your faint.
Anyway, on my way back from purchasing tickets for a Friday night jazz salon show featuring “Old Shanghai” songs, along with a dance performance featuring historical Chinese costumes, I stopped by Gong De Lin, a 100 year old vegetarian restaurant with Buddhist roots. And if this is standard vegetarian fare, then sign me up! This restaurant, and the particular line of monastic cuisine, has a history of creating “mock” dishes. So they had mock duck, mock beef, mock pork, mock crab, all lovingly crafted from tofu and various flour pastes. And then lovingly doused in oil and usually fried to beautiful perfection. Aside from mimicking the look and taste, the recipes also mimic the texture of the meat dishes, so it felt a little like the first time I had a Snackwell’s – there was a giddy feeling of “I can eat all I want! It’s vegetarian!” I had the set meal, which was like 8 courses, with a tiny vegetarian amuse bouche, appetizer, several entrees, a couple of soups, and then a fruit platter. The soups tasted like stuff my mom makes on Chinese New Year’s Day, so it felt like comfort food, with dried tofu, dates, and mushrooms. The amuse bouche was a tiny pile of flavored seaweed and tofu, and the cold appetizer was a cold smoked “duck”, which amazingly, had the texture of duck, along with a nice, gamey, duck flavor. A plate of traditional steamed vegetables, doused in oil, and sprinkled with vegetarian ham slices was lovely, along with a claypot of fried “fish”, mushrooms, and tofu. The fish tasted like fried fish, and I would have sworn it was the real thing. The piece de la resistance was the crab dish, served in a claypot shaped like a crab. The “crabmeat” was shredded and mixed with ginger, egg, and spices, and served with rice. I must say, charming presentation aside, this dish was my least favorite, because the ginger overpowered everything else. The texture of the “meat” was very good, though, so kudos on that. A couple of vegetable-stuffed dumplings followed, then dessert, a fruit platter. All in all, it was a lovely meal, served in an elegant setting, with stately bamboo, hardwoods, fountains, and Buddhist motifs throughout. I wish I could have snagged a menu, because the dish names were a hoot, flowery and grand names and descriptions, with at least one Buddha reference in each. Oh, one more thing: they provided a warm towel wrapped in cellophane at the beginning of the meal, to cleanse one’s hands before dining. I unwrapped mine and didn’t notice the price marked on it. They wanted 10 yuan for the towel…and sure enough, it showed up on the bill. The restaurant’s English name is “Godly”…cleanliness is next to godliness, and it is worth 10 yuan!
This week, I also visited the Shanghai Botanical Garden, which is located in the “suburbs”. I took the metro to the end of the line, and took a cab to the garden. It was a gloomy overcast day, damp from the previous night’s rainfall, and lightly drizzling…so of course I picked the perfect day to visit an open-air garden! There was a band of school kids on a field trip there, and their bright blue track suit school uniforms really popped out in the gray weather, and the greenery.
As I had limited time (basically a couple of hours before class started), I made a beeline for the bonsai garden. I passed quite a few lovely garden exhibits, with miniature bridges, waterwheels and whatnot. I crossed a bridge overlooking a dreary sewer-esque body of water..I say sewer-esque cause the water looked sludgy, and the aroma as I crossed the bridge, not so fresh. I was amused to see that the bridge was lined with planter’s tables that held heads of cabbage and lettuce. Sidenote: Heads of cabbage/lettuce are used in lieu of grass in many landscaping schemes here. I guess the color is preferable. I’ve seen heads of lettuce or cabbage (at least I think they are, I am not the most vegetable knowledgeable, I must admit) as the green foundation for landscaping in front of malls and shopping centers…funnily enough, the vegetation is in tact…I half expect people to lift the greens in lieu of a visit to the farmer’s market.
But back to the garden. Due to time constraints, I did not visit the greenhouses, where the carnivorous specimens lived, nor the Chinese medicine garden, though I think I would have liked to. The Bonsai Garden, with nearly a thousand specimens, was my primary target. Let me explain why: in Chinese, bonsai is translated as “Potted Scenery”, and is described in flowery (no pun intended) terms as capturing a scene of beauty in nature, in a miniature setting. Well you know me and miniatures. The descriptions conjured up visions of an au natural Legoland…and with that kind of build up, of course I’m going to be a little disappointed when the garden was all bonsai-- lots and lots of bonsai. Now I enjoy bonsai, don’t get me wrong. But the delicate, mini ones were pretty sparse; there were lots of larger, heartier specimens. All quite beautiful, and quite old, too. Some were unusually shaped, like high-heeled shoes, for instance. I could have spent hours in that garden, wandering and interpreting shapes like I would with cloud-watching. I had the garden to myself, and it was quite large, and pleasingly designed. There was a small pond, a greenhouse with smaller bonsai and an exhibit on bonsai care, and various pavilions and bridges and paths that allowed you to enjoy all the lovely bonsai in the garden. I was also pleasantly surprised to see a “rock potted scenery” area, which creates scenes from natural rock. This was quite delightful, as each pot held a mini scene of a lovely mountain, some greenery, sometimes water…I was smitten with these. One of the miniature mountains even had a Buddha carving and calligraphy, mimicking, I suspect, a mountain that exists in real-life, or in legend. Time was running out, so I had to jet. On my way out of the garden, I passed a couple of lovely cats, who blended in with the rock sculptures and greenery so eerily, that if they hadn’t moved, would have missed them.
As I walked back to the metro station, I noticed that I was really in the suburbs, or rather, a “less developed” area. The stores didn’t have neon signs; rather they had billboard canvases over their storefronts, with colorful painted lettering and graphics. There was also less traffic, and brick on some of the sidewalks were just being laid. There was a quieter, more laid back feel, and this was a pleasant change from the hectic, insane frenzy of the busier districts of the city. And of course, as far as I could tell, there were no tourists. Guess the Botanical Garden isn’t a real hot tourist spot.
I stopped by Dragonfly for another massage this week. I could really get used to this. Oh wait, I have gotten used to this. It will be painful to get back to the massage as a special occasion treat after building a massage into my weekly schedule. Yeah, yeah, woe is me.
I decided to pursue non-Arrrgh DVDs this week, and took a stroll up Shui Cheng Road, which is one of the main thoroughfares in the neighborhood where my school and hotel are located. It’s got lots of businesses frequented by locals, including a couple of DVD stores. I was looking for Canto-pop concert DVDs, as well as TVB soap opera DVDs. In sum, I was looking for Hong Kong DVDs. The stores had a comprehensive collection, though they tended to house more foreign (Western, Japanese, Korean) and homegrown (Chinese) items than Hong Kong and Taiwan items. I guess this shows the weakening pop culture influence of Hong Kong and Taiwan. The only Hong Kong and Taiwan singers they had items for were the superstars, such as Jacky Cheung and Andy Lau, Jay Chou, and some of the newer teeny bopper bubblegum pop singers. As for TV dramas, they only had new items as well…I was on the hunt for older TV soaps and movies. I did find the TVB version of “The Bund” with its infamous theme song that I keep referencing. I also found a DVD set that contains nearly every concert that Jacky Cheung has given in the last 15 years. That was quite a coup. I spied boxed sets of Buffy, Married with Children, and Hogan’s Heroes, and the fact that the stores didn’t take credit cards saved me from going crazay in there.
On Friday, I went to a Jazz Salon performance in Pudong, the newer, developed area of Shanghai. The show started at 7pm, so I didn’t have a lot of time after school let out to get there. So no leisurely, sit down dinner…I broke my “no Western fast food rule” by going to KFC. Time constraints aside, I was feeling so homesick, so craving fried, crunchy goodness, that I just had to go to a familiar place that would remind me of home. And am I glad I did…People, they had fried salmon!! Five pieces for 90 cents! And fried sea bass sammies! For a buck fifty! It’s like KFC and Long John Silver’s got together to dominate the fried fast food market. Brilliant. So I got my fried foods fix, and got to observe cultural eating habits up close. First off, the place was packed. I think that for all the anti-American scorn that might be omitted subtly by some mainlanders, the truth of the matter is, they do heart things American. Pricing wise, it was cheaper than what you’d pay in the US, by say 20%. As for the menu, they actually focused more on value meals of fried chicken and fish sandwiches, a drink, and a side, rather than meals with fried chicken pieces. Though you could pick up a bucket of chicken, too. The sides were different from what you’d get in the US – there was seafood soup, corn on the cob, French fries, and I think that was it. As for the self-serve aspect of the restaurant, you would wait for your meal, and bring your tray to a table to eat, but then after that, someone would bus the table for you, even though there was the standard fast food trash bin with place for trays that allow for self-service, too. The abundance of service workers is a nice touch in this instance – the place is so bustling, that you don’t have the ratio of two servers to one customer that occurs in smaller joints, and that can make the customer a little uneasy when the servers are hovering.
I hopped on the metro that would take me across the Huangpu River and into Pudong. It was bloody packed, of course; we were like sardines in the train cars. One thing about the metro: there’s no etiquette; you push yourself in, and if there’s no railing to hang onto, you just brace yourself. The threat of hurting onself when you don’t have a railing lessens when you’re packed in so tight with other passengers that they can support you if you lose your balance.
I tumbled off the train at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum stop. Outside the station was what I assume was a beautiful plaza that led to the museum. I say assume because it was pretty dark, and what the lights did show was a wide expanse, trees and greenery, a bridge over glistening water, and a looming building. Before I began to panic (it was dark, after all, and there was no signage visible anywhere) I saw the illuminated butterfly wings of the Oriental Art Center, where the jazz salon was being held, and walked in that direction. Whew, close call. I could so see myself walking in the opposite direction, and then in circles, if I hadn’t spied the building.
The Oriental Art Center is beautiful, with different performance halls spanning out from the main lobby “body” like the wings of a butterfly. There’s a symphony hall, an opera hall, and a couple of smaller performance halls with a capacity of 200 people or so. I found my seat, which was actually pretty decent and settled in. As the hall is round, and intimate, there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. The stage was very close; in fact, people in the front row could use it as a footrest. (And some did.) A nine-piece band was tuning up, and it was quite refreshing to see a bunch of middle-aged Chinese musicians…I dunno why. Maybe because it’s gratifying to see men who look like my parent’s friends, or my friends’ parents, and who you expect to be accountants or some such, to actually be artists, career musicians. Kinda cool.
The show started on time, and was emceed by a local television host. The Friday night jazz band series focused “old school” jazz, and the theme for the night was “By the Suzhou Creek” which is a classic 1930s Shanghai song. Guys, I loooove old school music, and this was the famous era in Shanghai that I especially liked. The band was awesomely talented, and the bandleader, was an 83 year-old bass player who was utterly adorable. The first chair trumpet player was 80 years old, and he pounded out the songs like a man half his age. There were three saxes, two trumpets, one trombone, one elderly man on percussion (bells, xylophone, etc), one drummer, and one pianist. They played wonderful old school stuff for a good half hour, including some mellow, Broadway showtunes, some latin vibe stuff, in which the elderly percussion player stood up proudly wielding his castanets (adorable). Really great stuff. Then a gorgeous young opera singer dressed in strapless cocktail dress came out to belt “Memory” from Cats, and Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E”, quite respectably, I might add. A couple more instrumentals, followed by another singer, this time a local Shanghai celebrity who was a bit of an over the top diva. She sang a bunch of mandarin 1930s jazzy songs (like “Rose, Rose, I Love You”) and was quite the performer. The first chair sax player had a solo with her, and he was great. He also played the clarinet, and to hear his clarinet solo, in its sweet clarity, brought tears to my eyes. Miss Diva, who had initially looked a little miffed to have her spotlight shared, even looked affected when he did his solo. Miss Diva then took her leave, amid kisses and bows, and another lady, with a high, Peking-opera voice, came out to sing a few numbers. I was glad when she left the stage…her voice was a little too high for jazz, I think. A brief interlude where the 83 year-old band leader passionately extorting the importance of the old school jazz, and dissing on acid and electronica infused jazz ensued. The show closed with Miss Diva returning, in all her lion-maned, sequined cheongsammed glory, to sing the classic “Shanghai Evenings”.
In all, I really enjoyed the show, and highly recommend the Friday Night Jazz Salon. I really lucked out with this show, as I bought tickets to it as an afterthought…it was a condolence prize, since I couldn’t get tickets to the Lyceum Theater show “Shanghai, Shanghai” which was another limited run show featuring music from “Old Shanghai”. The theme of the jazz salon was perfect, as I prefer old school stuff, and the intimacy of the venue really allowed me to connect with the band and the performers. It was also nice to have vocal performances, too. My beefs (of course I’d have beefs!): one dude who kept taking flash pictures after the ushers continuously told him pictures wee forbidden. Actually, the announcement was made at the beginning of the show, then the ushers walked the theater holding electronic signs saying “No Photography Allowed”. But the same dude kept taking flash pictures…ushers warned him three times, and I guess they gave up after that. They should have just confiscated the camera. Another beef: the lack of programs for the show. Can you believe they ran out of programs to hand out? I bugged an usher at intermission, and she said they were out. I had to resort to taking a discarded program after the show was over. Another beef, actually, not really a beef, more an observation. The show’s organizers are so nice to their performers; they had bouquets of flowers for each performer. I saw out of the corner of my eye, the bouquet coordinator with her clipboard and flowers, who had recruited several younguns to help her present the bouquets. One bouquet was given by a true fan, though: Miss Diva received a gorgeous bouquet from a tall, middle-aged, balding, Caucasian man, who asked for a hug and a kiss, which was cute.
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